


Touchdown

by i_saw_sparks



Category: Big Time Rush RPF
Genre: Comedy, Engagement, F/M, Football, Love, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:52:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_saw_sparks/pseuds/i_saw_sparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew there were only two things that made her grow religious: football and good sex (Logan Henderson smut).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touchdown

“Ready for some Sunday night football?”  
  
Enthusiasm and a heavy southern drawl seeped through the question as she set a bottle of beer on the coffee table in front of him. Logan couldn’t help but laugh as he watched her throw her arms up in the air, her fists punching the air in little jerks as she made up her own little spastic game day dance.  
  
He waited until she was curled up on the couch beside him before he scrunched his nose up at the beer in his grasp.  
  
“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” she began before he had a chance to fire off some smart-ass comment. “The only person that drinks beer around here is Mark, and he only drinks Natty Light, so that’s all I’ve got.”  
  
A smirk pulled at the corner of his lips. “Mhm, whatever.”  
  
“I don’t see why it matters anyway,” Kandi replied as she leaned back into the plush beige couch cushions and propped her bare feet up on ledge of the coffee table. “It all tastes like piss to me.”  
  
Logan shook his head to himself before stealing a glance over at her, that little smile playing across her lips, the one she got when she was just so goddamn pleased with herself. With a roll of his deep brown eyes, he realized that all of her obnoxious little quirks would’ve annoyed the hell out of him if he didn’t love her so much, but he did. They’d been together for almost two years now, with the majority of that time spent across the country from one another, so the scarce amount of time they did get to spend together held that much more meaning. He would’ve been lying if he pretended that this had all been a walk in the park for him. In the beginning, it was hard, and he constantly had to remind himself of why he’d decided to commit to the whole long-distance thing with her in the first place, but as time passed, he grew more accustomed to the way that things had to be, at least for now. In a way, he appreciated what they had because there was this understanding between him and Kandi that, at least for the time being, their respective lives kept them apart. He wasn’t trying to change her in order to get her to fit conveniently into his life, and the same held true for her feelings towards him.  
  
Kandi had this hope that if they loved each other enough, the rest would just work itself out, and though Logan had never shared that kind of optimism, she’d somehow managed to bring him around. In the beginning of their relationship, it had taken her forever to let her guard down around him, but once she finally let him in, she refused to give up on him.  
  
They had fell into their own schedules of making time for one another, and even though they were both busy, they managed to see each other about one a month, and this time, it was Logan’s turn to fly out and spend the week at her place.  
  
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I would think watching a football game would be the absolute last thing you’d want to do on your day off from work. Just sayin’.”  
  
Admittedly, he was a little frustrated that they’d barely spent any time together. Kandi did film work for her college’s football team, and now that the summer was drawing to a close, camp was in full swing, an effort to prepare the team and whip them in shape for the upcoming season. Apparently, they couldn’t just have one practice a day. They had to space it out, and the gap in between practices wasn’t long enough for them to actually go out and _do_ anything together.  
  
Logan had gone to practice with her one morning, but the coaches wouldn’t let him go up in the lift with his girlfriend, so he was stuck killing time on the field, trying to make some sense out of everything going on around him. Everyone there was nice enough, but it was utterly exhausting trying to make small talk with them when he was slightly irritated that he had to be there in the first place.  
  
Logan didn’t mind football. Like most guys, he actually enjoyed watching it, but at the moment, football was becoming a total cock-block for him.  
  
“Aw come on, Low-Low. There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly competition.” Her dark eyebrows wriggled against her fair skin as she held the bottle of Twisted Tea to her lips.  
  
Kandi was completely oblivious to his frustration. He was an actor, and he hid his feelings from her well. She already felt guilty for leaving him alone most of the week, he didn’t want to say anything that would make her feel even worse because really, she couldn’t help it. But every cloud has a silver lining, and with Kandi preoccupied with her work, Logan got a chance to put his plan in action.  
  
He rolled his eyes, but he was unable to mask the smile on his face. “I guess not.”  
  
She was dressed head to toe in her game day ensemble: a white Carolina Panthers tee that draped off of her frame and a figure-hugging pair of black yoga leggings. With her chestnut waves swept up in a messy bun on top of her head and without a stitch of makeup on her face, he still thought she looked beautiful, and his gaze shamelessly traversed her frame as he bit his lip, but she didn’t seem to notice.  
  
Taking another swig of her drink, she turned to face him, and Logan snapped out of his daze. “Let’s make this a little more interesting. Panthers score, you shed some of your clothes. If the Steelers score, then I’ll show you some skin.”  
  
Now they were getting somewhere.  
  
“So we’re doing strip football now or something?” he asked, that lilt of laughter in his voice. “I can do you one better. Panthers win, I’ll do whatever you want, but if the Steelers win…well…you’re all mine for the night.” He shot her a wink, and she laughed, her cheeks flushing pink.  
  
“I can work with that.”  
  
“I guess it’s game on, then?”  
  
“I guess it is,” she teased. “Better wish your Steelers luck tonight, they’re gonna need it.”  
  
“Damn, K.” Logan laughed. “No need to start getting salty on me.”  
  
At first, she just shrugged, but it was hard for her to hide that smile creeping across her lips.  
  
Logan sinked back into the cushions, slinging his arm over her neck as she let her head rest on his shoulder. It wasn’t time yet for kick-off, so they were still showing interviews with the coaches and players spliced with boring game predictions from the commentators. It wasn’t until he was settled in on the couch, coffee-colored stare absentmindedly taking inventory of the space around, that Logan noticed that something was missing.  
  
“Where’s Durden?”  
  
It was unusual for the stumpy black lab mix to not be at Kandi’s side. Most of the time, he was fighting to climb up on the couch with them, never realizing that there just wasn’t enough room for the three of them and that he had grown too big to lie comfortably in Kandi’s lap.  
  
“Harp’s watching him for the weekend.” She beamed proudly at the thought of the little girl she babysat. “I figured he needs to spend more time around kids. I think he’s really scared of them.”  
  
He chuckled. “That dog’s scared of everything.”  
  
“Yeah, I don’t really get why Harp adores him so much. He’s knocked her over more times than I could count.”  
  
Logan caught that glimmer in her honey-brown eyes, and he knew that that was what she wanted more than anything: a family of her own. Stuck in college and completely unstable financially, Kandi still felt like a kid herself, and rationally, she knew she was in no place to have another human being fully dependent on her, but it didn’t alleviate the need. Though kids weren’t exactly on Logan’s radar, he had to admit that if he ever decided to do the whole parenting thing, there wasn’t anyone he’d rather do it with than her. He had no doubt that she’d be stellar at it, just from the way she already doted on her dog and that little girl.  
  
A soft smile adorned her lips as her eyes drifted up to meet his. “What is it?”  
  
“Nothing…” He let his voice trail off before quickly changing the subject. “So…ready to get outta those clothes?” He slipped a finger beneath the neckline of her shirt, letting the soft cotton drag against her skin.  
  
“Hey now, you know what they say about counting your chickens before they hatch.”  
  
“Speaking of chicken,” he began with a laugh. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything to eat around here, would you? You know, aside from your flax seed, organic, health food bullshit.”  
  
She held his gaze, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “You know I don’t cook. We could order Chinese again? They’re kind of the only place that delivers here, and I’m not missing the game to go pick something up.”  
  
“Do they have wings?”  
  
“Not sure, but there’s a takeout menu on the fridge.”  
  
Logan’s brown eyes pleaded with her, his lower lip jutting forward in his best attempt to win her over, and for once, the puppy dog eyes worked. With an exasperated sigh, Kandi hopped up from the sofa, the slight sway of her hips apparent as she strutted into the adjacent kitchen.  
  
“Here ya go, lazy bones,” she teased him as she handed him the crinkled piece of paper. She leaned against his shoulder, her eyes scanning the menu along with him as he searched for his favorite game day snack.  
  
“All right, here we go, honey barbeque chicken wings. Wanna split a twenty-four piece?” he asked.  
  
“Nah,” she replied, scrunching up her nose. “I’m not sure I trust wings from a Chinese restaurant. I mean, China’s not exactly known for their chicken wings.”  
  
“You’re right, but I’ll take my chances.” He winked at her before grabbing his iPhone from the coffee table and punching in the familiar number.  
  
Logan could feel her stare fixated on him as he called in the order. Her finger trailed up the length of his forearm, her lips left playful kisses along his neck, anything that would distract him so that she could hear that waver in his voice.  
  
As soon as he pressed the end button, he turned to her. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Nothing, just messing with you,” she said with a laugh. “Okay, they’re about to do the coin toss. Heads or tails?”  
  
“Depends.” He raised an eyebrow. “What’s the bet?”  
  
“I don’t know. Loser makes the winner breakfast in the morning?”  
  
“Okay, guess that’s good enough. I’ll go with tails since I’ve heard it’s always slightly weighted towards tails.”  
  
“Fine, I usually call heads anyway.” She shrugged.  
  
“And it’s heads,” the announcer on the tv announced, almost as if on cue. “Pittsburgh chooses to receive.”  
  
“Guess you’d better figure out what you’ll be making me for breakfast in the morning, Mr. The-Coin’s-Always-Weighted-Towards-Tails.”  
  
“Hey, that’s fine by me,” Logan replied as he sunk back into the couch cushions. “I’d rather get up early and make breakfast than eat your terrible cooking anyway.”  
  
She gave his shoulder a playful shove as she furrowed her dark eyebrows. “Hey, I’m totally okay with making breakfast. It’s the other two meals I’m no good at.”  
  
Logan didn’t really care that she couldn’t cook or that she wasn’t big on cleaning. Those were both things that they could pick up and work out as they went along, but they already had the one thing you couldn’t learn, and that was chemistry.  
  
“It’s okay.” He slung his arm over her shoulders as she curled up against him. “I’m not much better at it than you are, but I do have eggs and bacon mastered.”  
  
“Ha ha, you’re so funny,” she replied dryly, but she still nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck.  
  
Logan ran his hand down the length of his thigh as inconspicuously as possible, his palm gliding down the soft fabric of his black basketball shorts as he felt to make sure the long oval box was still nestled in the right position, held in place by a too-tight and uncomfortable pair of boxer briefs. In all honesty, he couldn’t take credit for the idea; he’d stolen it from some movie he’d caught his roommate watching one afternoon. Regardless, he thought it was the perfect way to propose to her, although admittedly, it was a bit unorthodox. Then again, their relationship was anything but ordinary.  
  
Knowing Kandi, she’d turn it into a hilarious story to tell her family and friends. Neither of them were big on grand romantic gestures, so a more humorous approach was a better fit for the two of them as a couple.  
  
None of this worked to ease Logan’s nerves, and the fact that he’d always considered himself a more laidback, go-with-the-flow type of guy only made him more anxious because this feeling was so foreign to him.  
  
Forcing a smile, Logan was eager to take his thoughts off of himself. “You know, the Panthers wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t put all of their faith in Cam Newton.”  
  
“Oh shut up, you’re just saying that because you _know_ Cam Newton’s my boy.” She rolled her eyes but refused to budge from his side.  
  
“I thought Drew Brees was your boy.”  
  
“Nah, the Saints are my backup team,” she explained as she brushed the notion away with a flick of her wrist. “Girl’s gotta have a backup.”  
  
“If you pulled for the Steelers, you wouldn’t _need_ a backup team.”  
  
They were both so preoccupied giving each other hell that neither of them noticed the first touchdown of the game. The Steelers had bagged a thirty-seven-yard touchdown on their first offensive possession, a play that was punctuated by the doorbell.  
  
“I’ll get it, it’s probably my takeout anyway,” Logan announced as he slowly rose from the couch. “You just get to work taking some clothes off, that’s all I’ve got to say.”  
  
“Hey, if I say I’m gonna do something, I do it,” he heard her call from the den, and he glanced back just in time to catch a glimpse of her pulling her t-shirt over her head before she disappeared behind the counter again.  
  
Fishing his wallet from the waistband of his shorts, Logan counted out the cash to pay the deliveryman, although he had to admit, his meal didn’t smell too appetizing.  
  
He could already see the grease seeping through the bottom of the paper bag, so he grabbed a plate from the cabinet and another beer from the refrigerator before making his way back to the couch.  
  
“Oh, and don’t worry about the point-after. We’re good,” he continued to tease her, a chuckle tumbling past his lips as he tried to get his meal situated.  
  
“You can’t tell me that you’re seriously gonna eat that? There are little puddles of grease all over the plate. That’s just a heart attack waiting to happen.”  
  
All he could offer her was a shrug. “You only live once.”  
  
Logan could just feel her rolling her eyes behind him, and though he knew she had the best intentions, he hated hearing her go on and on about his less-than-perfect diet. On the other hand, he knew that she really cared about him.  
  
“Hey, you can eat whatever you want, I’m just trying to keep you around for a while. Don’t want you killing over on me.”  
  
He flashed her a quick grin. “I know, I know.”  
  
They spent the remainder of the first quarter in comfortable silence. Logan chowed down on his disappointing honey-barbeque wings while Kandi stretched out along the other side of the couch, her gaze trained on the television screen. It wasn’t until he got up to throw his trash away that her eyes began to follow him, and when he came back into the living room, his lips curved into a lopsided smile.  
  
“What are you doing?” she sputtered out the words through her own giggles as she watched him try to settle into the space between her back and the couch.  
  
His dark eyes widened, the most exasperated expression etched across his features as he tried to explain. “Woman, I am trying to cuddle with you, but you are making it impossible.”  
  
“Well, you should’ve said something. I didn’t know what you were over there trying to do.” Her laughter continued to seep through her voice as she eased closer to the edge of the sofa, making room for him.  
  
Logan took off his Dodgers baseball cap and hung it on the corner of the couch, revealing the soft espresso-colored locks that had been hidden beneath, before he eased into the space behind her. He wrapped his arms around her frame, pulling her back against his chest as he buried his face into the nape of her neck.  
  
She turned back, her gaze flickering between his stare and the fullness of his lower lip as she began to lean in for the kiss, but before he got a chance to feel her lips press against his own, he saw her features wrinkle up.  
  
“I’m sorry, but honey, you have got to brush your teeth. All I can smell are those disgusting wings on your breath.” Kandi couldn’t hide her grin as she spoke, struggling to hold off her own spurts of laughter that threatened to spill past her lips.  
  
“Aw come on, Kandi,” he joked as he pursed his lips. “Kiss me, kiss me.” His lips remained pursed like a fish as they smacked in her ears, and she couldn’t stop laughing as she held him back, her palm pressing into his chest.  
  
“You should love me, barbeque breath and all, you know. You’re such a shitty girlfriend,” he joked as he eased off of the couch. Neither of them could keep from laughing.  
  
“Oh Logan, I love you, I just can’t make out with you,” he could hear her call after him as he headed off towards the apartment’s tiny bathroom.  
  
With forty-one seconds left in the first quarter, Shaun Suisham of the Steelers snagged a forty-nine-yard field goal, bringing the score to 10-0.  
  
“Takin’ it off, takin’ it off,” Logan sang along to the Akon song in his head as he came back into the room, raising the roof with his arms and bopping his head along to the beat.  
  
“Oh my god, you’re ridiculous,” she laughed as she hooked her thumbs into the waistband and eased the stretchy black fabric down over her hips.  
  
“Maybe you should tell your boy Cam to put some points on the board.”  
  
“I wouldn’t get too cocky now, it’s still only the first quarter.”  
  
She fell back onto the couch, struggling to shake the leggings off from around her ankles. Logan’s gaze wandered down her body, his lips mashed together, forming that cocky half-grin, half-smirk of his, the one he knew she couldn’t stand.  
  
Now clad in only her underwear, Kandi did a little twirl in the space between the coffee table and the couch, placing her hands on her hips as she turned to face her boyfriend. “Happy now?”  
  
One eyebrow rose as he glanced down at her hips. “Don’t tell me that you seriously have a pair of Panthers underwear.”  
  
“What? I think they’re cute.” She spun around, two thumbs jerking back towards the word “TOUCHDOWN” written across her ass in foiled silver lettering, little panther heads printed all over the black silk boyshorts. “They’re my lucky game day underwear.”  
  
“Well, they’re obviously not working for you tonight,” he chuckled as he neared her. Logan let his hands rest along the curve of her hips, his thumb tracing the lace trim of her underwear. “But hey, they could still be lucky for me.”  
  
She wove her arms around his neck, tilting her head back as she tried to bite back her own grin. “God, you’re such a cornball.”  
  
He decided not to humor her with a response; he just simply stared at her, as if he were trying to embed this moment in his memory. Scattered freckles across the bridge of her nose, that silent dare in her eyes, the way her teeth dug into her lower lip: this was the way she looked right before she knew her life was about to change forever.  
  
It was just like any other night, but there was a noticeable shift in the atmosphere, an expectancy that Logan was all-too-aware of and that Kandi couldn’t seem to put her finger on.  
  
Her lips brushed against his, soft and subtle at first, almost as if she were just testing the waters. He knew he shouldn’t have felt like he’d been taken off guard because really, he’d been expecting it. They’d been together long enough to know all of one another’s tells, but he still felt stunned somehow. As her lips provided more pressure, he felt his breath catch in the back of his throat, and it was an unnerving sensation. Maybe it was the anxiety, the inherent fear that came along with being on the verge of a new and unknown chapter in his life, or maybe it was the realization that this would be all he’d know for rest of his life, that she’s be his last first kiss. Logan was okay with all of this, and it was the fact that he was perfectly content to spend the rest of his life with this one person that terrified him the most. It wasn’t something he’d ever expect of himself.  
  
They spent most of the second quarter of the game making out on her couch like two horny teenagers. Her bare knees grazed his sides, each of her movements silently urging him to take things further, and though it proved a difficult task to resist, he knew he had to stick to the game plan.  
  
When Kandi began to tug impatiently at the hem of his t-shirt, he broke away.  
  
“Last time I checked, the Panthers hadn’t scored yet.” The taunt was a murmur in her ear: slow, seductive, tempting.  
  
But a thirty-one-yard field goal was her saving grace, and almost as if they knew she needed it, the Carolina Panthers put three points on the board.  
  
“Uh oh, looks like the tides, they are a-turning, Henderson.”  
  
Logan pulled away, rolling his eyes as he eased his t-shirt over his back and shoulders, discarding the thin layer of cotton to the carpet below.  
  
They continued to kiss, and Logan felt like his mind and his body were in two totally different planes of existence. His body was falling into her patterns, every arch of her back and tilt of her head was countered by him. Meanwhile, Logan raked his brain for the right words to say when the time came. He considered himself a pro when it came to the delivery, but at the same time, he was an actor, not a writer. He was so used to having the perfect line fed to him that he wasn’t confident in his ability to find the words he needed so desperately.  
  
He knew she could feel his distance, each of her kisses that followed possessed more of her slow-burning passion than the last, and his thoughts traveled back to the first time he realized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.  
  
It had been his turn to fly out and spend a week with her, yet again, but this time, instead of being bogged down by the humidity, there had been a chill in the air. It was nearing the end of November, a week before Thanksgiving, and Kandi had practically begged him to come to one of the football games she had to film, even going so far as to buy him a hoodie with the team mascot on the front so that he wouldn’t feel left out. Logan couldn’t let her down.  
  
Even though his flight had been delayed that Saturday morning, as soon as he’d landed, he’d thrown on that sweatshirt and managed to find his way to the campus using the GPS in his rental car. He’d missed the first three quarters, but he’d brought her a coffee from the Starbucks nearby to make up for it, and he watched her as she wove her way through the crowded stadium, smiling at everyone she passed and stopping to chat with a group of injured players. Eventually, she made her way to him. That smile on her face refused to fade, even when she crossed her arms against her chest in an attempt to shield herself from the cold.  
  
“Congrats on the big win,” Logan greeted her, and he was caught off guard when she slung her arms around his neck, hugging him with such force and enthusiasm that she almost knocked the coffee cup from his grip. “I brought you a coffee.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“No problem, I know how much you love your ‘Bucks.”  
  
“I just can’t believe we made it to the championships,” she said as they walked hand-in-hand back to his car, her features still aglow with pride and team spirit.  
  
That whole-hearted passion that she put into every little thing she did was what drew him to her, and he couldn’t imagine living his life without that source of inspiration and seemingly-endless energy in it. Harper, Durden, work, school, she poured every bit of herself into everything she loved, and Logan was lucky enough to consider himself one of those things. Kandi wasn’t perfect. She was complicated, way too stubborn for her own good, and she had that spitfire temper of hers, with its way of rearing its ugly head at the worst possible moment. No, she wasn’t perfect, but neither was he, and somehow, those two imperfect pieces fit together in a way that seemed almost effortless.  
  
The two of them were magic, and they knew it.  
  
Neither of them was paying much attention to the game, but he could feel Kandi perk up as soon as she heard the next announcement. The Panthers had scored a touchdown, tying the score in the third quarter, and she couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome.  
  
“All right, Henderwhore, time to get outta those shorts.” She took her usual level of obnoxiousness up a notch, running one hand swiftly against the palm of the other as she pretended to make it rain on him.  
  
As much as he tried to fight it, he couldn’t keep himself from laughing. His eyes creased at the corners, and his boyish dimples became more and more apparent as his walls came crumbling down. He still couldn’t believe that, here he was, standing in the middle of her living room in just his Batman boxer briefs, with a ring box lodged in his crotch, about to propose to his girlfriend over a football game. It was something so hilarious and so surreal to him that he felt disconnected somehow, like this was all just a dream that he was waiting to wake up from.  
  
But her touch felt real as her lips met his, her palms ran down his chest, and her fingers threaded through his hair. Feeling awkward and exposed, Logan collapsed back onto the couch, pulling her down with him. His hands found their familiar handle on her hips, her knees digging into the cushions as she straddled him. She left a light kiss on his lips before those same fleeting kisses traced his jawbone. Wisps of loose hair tickled his skin as her lips enveloped his pulse point, and his fingertips followed the curve of her spine before they came to rest on her shoulder.  
  
Though her lips stayed glued to his neck, her touch began to wander, skimming the planes of his chest, tracing the barely defined muscles of his stomach, eventually falling to his thighs. Logan could feel her fingers tiptoe down the length of the box, her thumb graze the side through his underwear, and though looks could be deceiving, Kandi wasn’t stupid.  
  
Her suspicion lined her irises as she pulled away, her lips hovering near his as her gaze locked with his. All Logan could think was how easy it would be to bridge that gap between them.  
  
He kept his voice low as he spoke, his eyes darting down to where her hand now rested. “Go ahead, take it out.”  
  
As soon as he heard those words in his own voice, he felt utterly ridiculous. His eyes shifted towards the ceiling for a moment as he tried to gather himself.  
  
It wasn’t until she finally maneuvered the velvet box through the slit in his boxers that Logan realized that maybe, just [i]maybe[/i], he should’ve thought things out a little more beforehand.  
  
Still flustered, he grabbed the box from her grasp before she got a chance to open it, dropping to one knee on the floor and raking a hand through his hair as he presented her with the ring. All the while a million things he could say stormed around in his brain, each of them suitable, but too frenzied to be in his reach.  
  
Instead of taking the more romantic route and pouring his heart out to her, which had never been his thing, he went with the only thing he knew. Simple and honest, he held her gaze as he tried to get his lips to form the words.  
  
“Okay…Okay, so I know it’s been hard for us these last two years, this whole back and forth thing, but I guess I could say that the one good thing that’s come out of all of this is that I know that this is what I really want: you and me, forever. K, will you….just marry me? Please? So I can get up because this is way more uncomfortable than it looks?”  
  
Kandi was laughing to herself as she pushed the loose bangs from her face. As hard as she tried to play it off, it was nervous laughter, and he could hear that waver in her voice. “Do you even have to ask? Of course! Yes!”  
  
As soon as he was back on his feet, she slung her arms around his neck, and they shared a kiss. Though they’d kissed so many times before, to the point where her lips felt like nothing more than a natural extension of his own, there was something different, something pivotal in this kiss. Logan never thought that a simple question could change the way things were between them, but it did. It changed things for the better.  
  
Sitting on the couch, Logan noticed the way that her hand shook as he eased the ring onto her finger, and he noticed himself mirroring her jerky motions. Even though this felt so right and that ring looked so brilliant on her finger, it was hard for either of them to hide their fear. This was all so new, so unknown to the both of them, and they were scared that by investing every piece of themselves, they were dooming what they had for failure.  
  
It was the sound of the commentary coming from the television that worked to remind them of who and where they were, snapping them back to reality. A Steelers’ pass resulted in a touchdown, and with the point after, brought the score up 17-10.  
  
As he watched her reach behind her back, feeling for the clasps of her bra, Logan wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to worry about it, that they could just snuggle up and watch the rest of the game, but he didn’t. There was this look in her eyes, a determination, and he knew that they both needed something that would return them back to normal, and in Kandi’s eyes, this was it.  
  
Logan played along, leaning back against the couch cushion as his brown eyes stared at the screen. “I don’t know why your boy Cam is over there cheering on the sidelines. Heads up, your team is losing.”  
  
“By one touchdown. With an entire quarter left in the game,” Kandi shot back, crossing her arms against her chest as she propped her bare feet up on the coffee table.  
  
He looked her over. “You know, it’s not fair.”  
  
“What are you talking about?”  
  
“My team’s winning, but we’re even as far as the clothes front goes.”  
  
“Your life is just so hard, isn’t it?” she joked, and immediately, Logan knew that everything would be fine between them.  
  
They watched most of the next quarter together, getting their hopes up when their team had possession of the ball, taking jabs at one another, only to end up scoreless. It was nearing the end of the game when Carolina pulled through, bringing the score to 17-16. All they had to do was pull a two-point conversion to win.  
  
Logan stole a sidelong glance at Kandi, watching her hang from the edge of her seat. She was so caught up in the game that she’d forgotten her team had just scored, so technically, he should be naked right now, but he didn’t move. He didn’t want to distract her, and it was so funny and so cute, watching the way she kept her fingers crossed, her eyes shifting from the television screen to the heavens above as her lips fumbled to form a silent prayer.  
  
She wouldn’t turn to her religion when she was facing obstacles in her life or under substantial amounts of pressure, but she’d get real religious to win a football game.  
  
“I don’t think your Jew God thinks fondly of people who only pray during football games.”  
  
“Shut up!” she laughed, giving his arm a shove. “I’m trying to watch this!”  
  
Try as she might, there was no divine intervention. The two-point conversion was a failure, and the Pittsburgh Steelers won the game by only a single point.  
  
When everything was over and done with, the program shifting towards interviews of the coaches and key players, Kandi turned to him as if her entire world had been shattered.  
  
“And that’s what happens when you’re only religious for totally shallow reasons,” Logan quipped.  
  
“Okay, okay, you win,” she admitted, her gaze focused on her bare knees. “What did you have in mind? Oh, and let me remind you that you still owe me breakfast in the morning.”  
  
He rolled his eyes as he pretended to contemplate the matter, when in reality, he couldn’t have cared less. All he wanted was her. “Oh, it doesn’t really matter to me,” he replied, mimicking her tone as he closed in on her. Her legs were curled against his chest as he stretched out above her, his finger trailing down her side until he reached the lace waistband of her boyshorts. “But we could start by getting rid of these.”  
  
Her lips curled into a grin as he let the elastic snap against her skin playfully. “Mmkay.”  
  
He was quick to follow his own advice, sitting up and yanking his boxers down his thighs until they were just a pile of black and yellow fabric on the floor. Once again, he eased behind her, filling in the space between her back and the couch as he pulled her close against his chest, relishing the warmth of her body against his own because it was a sensation he so seldom got to experience. His lips pressed against her shoulder; his hands followed the curves of her frame, eager to rediscover every inch of her body. It was something so familiar and yet so unknown at the same time. On one hand, the stretches of fair skin, peppered with dark moles and fawn freckles, looked so much like his own, but at the same time, her touch was its own entity. Whenever her fingertips grazed his skin, he felt that rush, the arousal that came along with a touch that wasn’t his own.  
  
“So I’m guessing I still haven’t converted you into a Steelers fan?” he murmured in her ear as he squeezed her hip.  
  
She arched her back against him. “Depends. Have I turned you into a Panthers fan?”  
  
His hand traced the v of her pelvis as he chuckled. “Nope.”  
  
“Same here.”  
  
He kissed her neck. “Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree then.”  
  
“Works for me.”  
  
His lips lingered along the crook of her neck as a hand stroked up her stomach. His finger traced lazy spirals around her navel before skirting up the center of her torso. He let his hand rest along her sternum, feeling the reverberation of each [i]lub-dub[/i] as her heart thudded away in her chest. Each touch made her pulse race even more erratically, and he got off on that subtle sense of power that he had over her. His fingers lightly stroked up and down the delicate stretch of skin between her breasts, his fingertips forming doodles of shapes, zig-zags, letters, anything that would elicit that slight wriggle of her ass against him.  
  
He pressed his lips to the patch of skin behind her ear, grasping her breast in the motion, and he could hear that sharp inhalation, could feel the way her body arched to meet his. It was something so natural, this inherent reflex, that it made it even more difficult for him to focus on what he was doing. Nevertheless, his lips ran across the fair skin, hurried kisses blending with slow, lingering kisses as his touch coursed down her stomach, dipping between her thighs.  
  
Warm, heavy breaths fell along the back of her neck as his fingers curved to fit her frame, and though he wanted so badly to say something that would bring her to her knees, in the moment, nothing came to mind. The ridges of his hipbones dug into her flesh as his pelvis rolled against her, his fingertips gliding against her skin as he grew accustomed to the heat of her skin against his own. A palm held her hips in place as he gently caressed her with his fingertips. She was eager to counter each of his movements, her hips lurching forward against his touch, fighting his hold. Logan could feel her grow accustomed to his touch, her trembles subsiding with each slow stroke, so he replaced the sensation, slowly sliding the tip of his cock against her skin. It was just enough to make her muscles quiver, for him to feel the slow roll of her frame as she shifted back against him.  
  
With a simple thrust of his hips, his eased himself inside of her, the breath flooding from his lungs in one smooth, drawn-out sigh. While it was easy to establish a rhythm between them, with each of his thrusts flowing effortlessly into the crash of her hips, the leverage proved to be difficult. On one hand, he liked lying with her like this, with her back against his chest and his arms wrapped around her, because he loved the feeling of being so close to her, their bodies perfectly aligned on the sofa, but at the same time, it wasn’t as intimate. He wanted to be able to watch her eyelashes flutter over those brown eyes and her lips purse and tremble. Logan could also feel her frustration because, like this, she wasn’t able to kiss him or touch him the way that she needed to.  
  
He paused, and Kandi propped her head up on her arm so that she could look back at him. “Chinese fire drill?”  
  
Her teeth pulled at her lower lip as she nodded, but her gaze drifted down his body stretched out along the length of the couch as if she were trying to work out the logistics of the situation.  
  
Logan eased up slowly, supporting his weight on his forearms as she shifted beneath him. As he hovered above her, his eyes followed her stare into the distance, watching as she made that all-too-familiar grasping motion for something that he couldn’t pinpoint.  
  
He knew she wanted him to hand her something, he just wasn’t sure what it was.  
  
She caught the confusion in his eyes. “Pillow? Please? My neck’s cramping.”  
  
He chuckled to himself as he grabbed the throw pillow from the other end of the couch and gave it to her.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
They shared a kiss, her hands gripping the back of his head, refusing to let him go. Though the interactions between them and their feelings for each other hadn’t changed that night, there was an undeniable shift in the atmosphere between them, an underlying need for both of them to express their feelings for each other in the most natural way they knew how.  
  
Logan could feel her knee ghost up his side as they kissed, and when the kiss drew to a close, she carefully stretched her leg along the length of his torso, letting it rest against his shoulder. It was this unnerving, tantalizing sensation, the way she tightened around him. He let his hand course up the back of her thigh, giving the supple flesh a quick squeeze as he grinned at her.  
  
From his forehead to the crown of his head, her fingers threaded through tufts of espresso-colored hair, gently pulling the strands as his lips battered and abused the skin along her chest and collarbone. The slow shallowness of his thrusts provided an intoxicating contrast to the harsh desperation behind his kisses, and with each of his movements, Logan could hear her breathing grow more and more uneven. Upping the ante, he drifted down to her breast, his fingertips crawling up her ribcage as his lips enveloped her nipple. His tongue flicked, spiraled, flattened against the pert flesh, and with each new sensation, her grip on his locks grew strong, her vocalizations became more needy, and her muscles tensed.  
  
As each thrust delved deeper, their pace quickening, even more desperate sounds began to hollow out her throat, and although his own breathing was becoming jagged, he refused to let his lips leave her skin.  
  
His determination was rewarded when he heard his own name dragged out in her southern drawl.  
  
“Oh god, Logan… _Fuck_ …Don’t stop.”  
  
He knew there were only two things that made her grow religious: football and good sex. Tonight, they’d had a little bit of both.  
  
His gaze strayed up to her fingers, curved around the arm of the sofa as her hips bucked against him, and his hips lightly circled hers in an attempt to mimic the thrill she’d given him so many times. While the result didn’t feel [i]exactly[/i] the same, it was close enough to make her head loll back against the pillow.  
  
Logan knew he was about to reach his edge, that spastic feeling in the pit of his stomach becoming more apparent with each jerky thrusts. Kandi had been with him long enough to know all of his tells, and she arched up off the couch to meet him, holding the position just long enough to leave them both satisfied.  
  
The television was still on as they snuggled up on the couch together, four brown eyes staring blankly at the screen as they became comfortable in each other’s arms. Noticing the new feeling of the cool metal against his skin, Logan’s gaze came to rest on her ring finger, the five petal-shaped diamonds catching the traces of dim light and scattering it perfectly around the pale coral center.  
  
It wasn’t something he’d planned out or put a ton of thought into, but as soon as he laid eyes on that ring in the store, he knew it was somehow meant for her.  
  
She felt his stare, giving him that look, the same look that made his heart tighten in his chest, a reminder that he was the luckiest guy in the world. The depth and sincerity in her honey-colored eyes was something he could never take for granted.  
  
“Thanks.” Her voice was soft as she held his gaze.  
  
He raised an eyebrow as a light-hearted chuckle tumbled past his lips. “For what?”  
  
“For everything.”  
  
It was all he needed to hear to feel loved, and there was a sense of comfort embedded in the sentiment because he knew that, from now on, he’d always be loved in that way. Logan held the only home he’d ever need right there in his arms.  
  



End file.
